DraculaZombieUSA

Poll stat coverage

2008-08-14T14:58:00.004-04:00

An edifying post on "statistical tie" versus "margin of error" from the Washington Monthly blog. Bluefishcanoe, this sounds right, right?

808 state

2008-08-08T13:31:00.001-04:00

A metafilter post with a bunch of 808 State (not from Hawaii) youtube videos and 808 info.

A new kind of computer science

2008-08-04T13:45:00.004-04:00

I don't pretend to understand this, but when someone announces they have found, "the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor," I take notice (ref (see, it's so easy!)). It seems odd to me that this bit of electrical engineering, known as the memristor, was "found" and not created-- the researchers write, "Here we show, using a simple analytical example, that memristance arises naturally in nanoscale systems in which solid-state electronic and ionic transport are coupled under an external bias voltage." Uh, OK.

Anyway the NYT says, "Potentially even more tantalizing is the ability of the memristors to store and retrieve a vast array of intermediate values, not just the binary 1s and 0s conventional chips use. This allows them to function like biological synapses and makes them ideal for many artificial intelligence applications ranging from machine vision to understanding speech."

Katrina spills

2008-08-04T13:21:00.003-04:00

In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post Charles Krauthammer argues for increased oil-drilling because, in part, "The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling." This may be true, but it does not follow that our technology is safe enough. Krauthammer continues, "Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill." This is a pretty strong statement to make without any references, and it turns out it is simply false. Katrina resulted in the largest oil-spill since the Exxon Valdez (ref). This is the age of the internet, why can't the Post make its opinion makers include references in their pieces? Just one hyperlink dudes? At best this practice would prevent blowhards like Krauthammer from just making shit up to support their cases, and at worst we could locate the sources of these insidious falsehoods.

Manny commerical

2008-08-03T02:26:00.002-04:00

A commercial for ESPN that never aired: Link... After all this stuff, I love the Red Sox a little a less.

Prof. Obama

2008-07-30T02:34:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama's final exams and other class materials.

Novak hits pedestrian

2008-07-24T02:36:00.003-04:00

Robert Novak hit a pedestrian while driving his black corvette. It's true.

EDIT: What a world, Novak has a brain tumor, and these kinds of things are always sad.

protein folding supercomputer

2008-07-08T15:08:00.002-04:00

I've always thought protein folding prediction software is the inevitable and someday dominant future. Also, it is my go-to topic for awkward late-night and often all-too-lubricated "socials" at conferences and the like. Anyway, some big boys announced a new super big boy on the scene, Anton.

Lordi

2008-06-25T17:41:00.004-04:00

Maybe everyone already knew this, but Finland's entry into the Eurovision contest a few years back was costume-metal band named Lordi. Lordy. And they won.

Oh well

2008-06-11T12:38:00.005-04:00

It strikes me that the Bush administration as a "lame duck" administration is a slightly more decent one. They batted away that absurd gas tax holiday, oppose the farm bill in its current incarnation, and have come clean with government reports on global warming. Of course many manifestations of their misguided ideologies are still offensive to me (taxes, Iran, GI bill, etc.).

I think an attractive hypothesis is that this new-found decency is due to the fact they are no longer running for anything, and as such, can simply govern. To me, the most comprehensive explanation for their policies in the past is that they believed all policy was political; an idea proffered by John Dilulio, Scott McClellan, and others. So without all the political calculations nowadays, they are left to approach issues with reason and honesty.

stay positive 75 hill!

2008-05-23T01:44:00.001-04:00

Booger the dog, Kitty the cat and Mousy the rat-- video.

Platypus genome

2008-05-10T12:50:00.002-04:00

A fine discussion of the platypus genome

HRC

2008-05-02T12:28:00.007-04:00

One of my pals, a two-time W voter (???!!??), has since switched allegiances to Obama and company. His wonderful reversal has been fascinating to watch, although I think I've only caught the tail-end of it, and is a credit to his good sense. He still adheres to certain conservative opinions but does so honestly and with reason. Anyway he's taken to calling Hillary R. Clinton, Hillary "Republican" Clinton, and swears he will abstain from voting if it comes down to her V. McCain.

I have done my best to maintain support for her should she somehow gain the nomination but her recent irresponsibly bellicose comments about Iran and ill-conceived gas-tax holiday have sadly made her nickname all too apt. Like woe. On the gas tax thing: it seems almost unanimous that this it is a terrible idea and TPM thinks it might even further enrich the bogeyman oil companies.

more Manny

2008-04-26T02:27:00.003-04:00

Manny Ramirez on his legacy: "After all this is over, all I want is for my kids to go to college and to be their best friend. That’s all I want. I don’t care about home runs or whatever." I love that he is the best hitter on my favorite baseball team.

Gibson is an idiot

2008-04-17T18:35:00.005-04:00

One of the things that saddened me about the infuriating Democratic debate in Philly last night was that Obama let Gibson off the hook when he repeated the conservative chorus about taxes and government revenue:

---

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year -- $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair.

And what I want is not oppressive taxation. I want businesses to thrive, and I want people to be rewarded for their success. But what I also want to make sure is that our tax system is fair and that we are able to finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it and that we're able to invest in our infrastructure and invest in our schools.

And you can't do that for free.

---

Rather than going with this "fairness" argument which I personally believe has its own merits I would have preferred Obama simply state that Gibson's claim is false. It's a simpler reply and one that is likely to sway independents who may not subscribe to the idea of progressive taxation. Here's a quick read from one of Time's economics bloggers to have handy next time you run into a supply-sider at a cocktail party.

... acid!

2008-04-04T12:31:00.001-04:00

so much acid ace-ness:
Ceephax's Free Music.

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More

2008-03-29T19:46:00.001-04:00

More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice.

None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. Link

McCain on Iraq

2008-03-19T02:10:00.003-04:00

What would he do without Joe? link

Your drug is a heartbreaker

2008-03-15T21:48:00.006-04:00

My mind was blown when a buddy informed me that Mendel, godfather of genetics, was... a fraud! From what I can tell, the great monk had little training in statistics so his data suffered mightily from confirmation bias. Basically, he observed the simple 3:1 ratio and then doctored his data to fit it exactly. Gregor! Say it ain't so! Here's a review of "The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science," by Horace Freeland Judson, a book on various lowlights in scientific misconduct.

Behavioral Economists

2008-02-29T19:08:00.004-05:00

The more I hear about "behavioral economics" the more I like it. From what I can tell, the field basically replaces the highly problematic premise that individuals are rational actors with simple experimentation. It's like, er, making economics less a philosophy, and more a science. Here's a review of big-time guy Dan Ariely's recent book, "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" in the New Yorker. Also, I've heard Obama could do for behavioral economics what Reagan did for supply-siders. Not sure where I heard that but here's an article in the The New Republic about Obama and the field.

Sean Casey

2008-02-23T04:09:00.005-05:00

The Bosox just signed Sean Casey, a decent 1B who could probably start on a couple teams but will likely be a role / bench player for the defending world champs. He is known around the league as "the Mayor," and considered the nicest guy in the majors by an un-fucking-believable margin.

wow

2008-02-23T03:44:00.003-05:00

I know it's pretty easy to find wingunttery that's bizarre but this struck me as particularly special-- from the National Review, on Obama's "political origins" or uh, his parents (??):

And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.

And later:

Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family's background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

Oh my lord!

Open acccess fiat

2008-02-17T15:46:00.004-05:00

Harvard has mandated that its faculty will publish only in open-access journals. This is kind of a big deal. Here's the NYT story and some more commentary at Open Access News. I gather that in most fields the open-access journals are also the most prestigious but this not at all the case in biology. People are fucking crazy about the journals. I know of faculty that won't support tenure offers to colleagues who haven't published in any of the big three, Nature, Cell, and Science. Most researchers obsess over getting their work into these publications. As a result, the big three are in a very different league- with citations figures usually 2-3 times higher than the lower orders. The thing is, if I were a post-doc with a hot story in a lab that made its name in the pages of Cell, and my fancy boss told me we couldn't publish there I'd be furious ('course now I'd give my pinky for any kind of fucking story- just a big bar and small bar man!!). But this is for the greater good. It will force more journals to open up and its likely other universities will follow. Journals shouldn't have high subscription fees anyway- their costs should be plummeting due to declines in printing, etc.

Manny

2008-02-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

I am pretty sure Manny Ramirez is my favorite baseball player of all time:

He shouts, "Ohayo Gozaimasu" - Japanese for "good morning" - above the hip-hop music blaring in the Athletes' Performance weight room. He runs sprints and agility drills on the Arizona State football field and signals touchdowns. He fetches bottles of water for his workout mates, Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis and Minnesota Twins third baseman Nick Punto. He then does a lefty weight resistance exercise and announces he's going to bat lefthanded this year.

and a bit later:

Ramírez's uncle Rico accompanies him to every workout, and serves as an extra assistant. He's the only guy who knows how to stuff Manny's dreads back into his kerchief.

link

Big DNA molecule

2008-01-26T04:50:00.000-05:00

I keep seeing this synthetic "genome" in the news and I really think its impact is being inflated by forces I don't care enough about to discuss (OK, Craig Venter's ego). It seems like a highly successful DNA polymerase reaction and no more. I must be missing something. From what I can tell, this is the story: this dude that is good at getting press made a giant DNA molecule that is probably enough to encompass a bacterial genome. Shit's been done for viruses already. They haven't even shown it's sufficient to direct bacterial replication or life or whatever. Again, I ask, what am I missing?